Adlestrop
We listened to this tonight . How splendid. I can't consciously recall reading it before, but must have, if it's in lots of anthologies. It felt familiar. It's reminiscent of another poem I love, Graves Here Live Your Life Out! : Window-gazing, at one time or another In the course of travel, you must have startled at Some coign of true felicity. “Stay!” it beckoned, “Here live your life out!” If you were simple-hearted The village rose, perhaps, from a broad stream Lined with alders and gold-flowering flags— Hills, mills, hay-fields, orchards—and, plain to see, The very house behind its mulberry-tree Stood, by a miracle, untenanted! Alas, you could not alight, found yourself jolted Viciously on. Public conveyances Are not amenable to casual halts Except in sternly drawn emergencies— Bandits, floods, landslides, earthquakes or the like— Nor could you muster resolution enough To shout “This is emergency, let me out!” Rushing to grasp their brakes;...